The Past and the Present and the Tarte Tatin

Though this is the first time I'd ever baked the tarte, it had the familiar ingredients of a pie:  filling,  sauce, and crust.  A cross between a pie and a tart, this single crust pie is not as difficult to make as it seems. French names always connote gourmet rather than gourmand; this recipe will make your mouth water!  Making the pâte brisée in the food processor was not so new, because I'd made skillet pizza dough in it last week. It made making a pie crust less daunting, saving time and energy, besides.

We took the warm tarte and vanilla ice cream over to Robert and Anne's house for dessert.  We are all fella foodies and Anne is an exceptional cook. She made tom yum soup, chicken larb garnished with mint leaves, massaman curry (her mom made it, actually), shrimp in spicy paste, and mackerel steaks smothered with a spinach-like vegetable, sliced shiitake mushrooms, and slivers of chile pepper. Delicious. For dessert we had two; the tarte and Anne's red beans in syrup served over crushed ice.

It's a strange dessert to me because I'm used to eating red beans with rice as a meal, but to Andy, it brought back memories of coming home from school and having it as a snack. Food can have such strong associations. The tarte reminds me of Wisconsin apples--eating crisp fall apples out of hand, and baking apple pie and apple tart with the bounty.  Khru Ning gave us six Fuji apples for Chinese New Year. Two and a half of them went into this tarte.

Here is the Tarte Tatin from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. It's certainly good tasting, fun to make, and really quite easy.

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